Clean environments are commonly used in a variety of applications. For example, clean environments, known as "clean rooms", are used in the electronics industry to manufacture and process semiconductor devices. In such semiconductor clean rooms, it is important to maintain a high degree of cleanliness or sterility in order to prevent even small particles from interfering with the fabrication of the extremely small electronic devices. Semiconductor clean rooms are thus continuously being improved to provide ever increasing degrees of sterility in view of the continued miniaturization of the semiconductor devices being fabricated.
Other clean environments are commonly used in the manufacture of pharmaceutical products, wherein it is important to prevent the contamination of the products by contaminants within the air. Other clean environments are used in hospitals, such as clean rooms used for surgery wherein it is important to prevent contamination of open wounds and the like.
In such clean environments, great care is taken to prevent contamination of the clean environment by personnel and objects therein. The personnel are required to be scrupulously clean and to wear protective outer uniforms. Any object brought into the clean environment must be very carefully cleaned before being introduced into the clean environment. Some objects, such as computers, oscilloscopes, and other electronic devices, are difficult to clean. In addition, operation of many electronic devices require the movement of keys on a keyboard, which tends to dislodge particles that may contaminate the sterile atmosphere. Moreover, it is often necessary to calibrate or repair such electronic instruments and it is difficult to perform such calibrations or repair in the clean environment, as contaminated tools must be brought into the environment. Moreover, such calibration or repair often requires opening up the chassis of the electronic instrument, thereby causing additional contamination.
It is also often necessary in the manufacture of semiconductor devices to bring in chemical substances, both liquid and solid, which are used in various fabrication processes. The containers for such chemicals must be cleansed before being brought into the clean environment, which is not only difficult to perform but often does not provide the desired degree of cleanliness.
A need has thus arisen for a technique of allowing contaminated objects to be brought into a clean environment and enabling the objects to be functionally utilized therein without substantially altering the sterility or the cleanliness of the environment. Specifically, a need has arisen for allowing the introduction of electronic devices into a clean environment without the necessity of cleaning the electronic instruments prior to being introduced into the clean room, and yet without contaminating the sterility of the clean environment. A need has further arisen for a technique for introducing chemicals and the like into a clean environment without requiring pre-cleaning of the containers accommodating those chemicals.